September Massacres

The September Massacres occurred from 2 to 7 September 1792 when mobs of angry National Guard, French Revolutionary Army troops, and sans-culottes radicals stormed the prisons of Paris, France and massacred up to 1,400 prisoners. The massacres were instigated by radical pamphleteer Jean-Paul Marat, who called on the citizens of Paris to go into the prisons and massacre the prisoners to prevent the approaching Austrian and Prussian armies from freeing the prisoners and turning them against the new First French Republic. 1,400 people were killed, including 233 imprisoned Catholic priests, several royalists, street children, common prisoners, nobles, Swiss Guard troops, and Queen Marie Antoinette's confidant Princess Marie Louise of Savoy. Political opponents feared the government's power, and people in the provinces reacted with horror.